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After many weeks of experimenting with editing the CP300 sounds, it's just come to me that the CP300's may have a fundamental, strangely bad problem--the start point for the amp envelope for Piano 1 is set at the peak. That is why editing software works fine for the attack on Piano 2, but not for Piano 1. There is no attack stage for Piano 1, since the start amplitude is the same as the peak amplitude. I'm astonished, really. On a $2k instrument, they made a freshman's mistake.

Makes me angry. I've always thought that stage pianos, from the keyboard, should let the user control basic elements such as the amp envelope. Finding that restricting access to basic parameters also hides elementary mistakes leaves me almost lost for words.

Why is it a rookie mistake? I programmed mine the same way, so I'm curious to know. I think it would sound weird if it went up and back down. Could you post Piano 2 samples with the different attack settings?

Well, just to be sure that we're on the same page--I'm not talking about wanting to create an artificial ramp-up, which would, yes, sound weird. I'm saying that the programmers apparently went in and artificially raised the amplitude of the very earliest stage of the attack by setting the start point of the samples to the same level as the peak.

To me, it creates two problems. Most basically, it creates an inaccurate picture of the attack. Although it might seem that the attack on a piano note is naturally loudest at the very start, if you zoom in on a wave file in an editor, a few milliseconds or so of movement from 0 decibels to the peak can be seen--the time in which the hammer is first coming into contact with the string, pushing against the string before it is released to vibrate.

The second problem is just the one that confused me--the user loses control over the attack. That stage of the envelope can't be manipulated because essentially it doesn't exist. Having control over the length of the attack seems to me to be essential--small changes can make a big difference.

One can of course argue that a stage piano is not a synth. The user should keep his manipulative synth thinking to himself. But that thought would lead me back to the first problem--if the desire was to create a piano emulation, the start point should not have had its amplitude artificially raised. This may seem like an abstract point--Yamaha can do what it likes, of course, and if raising the start point amplitude sounds better, then there should be no reason to complain. But listening to Piano 1 and 2 carefully, I hear the attack on Piano 2 as being much better. In addition, using an editor, the user can control the attack on all of the other pianos. That's what makes me think it was a mistake instead of an intentional way of brightening the attack. If they only wanted to manipulate the samples to brighten the attack, they could have instead just reduced the attack time.

I'll try to post a recording of a few notes later, but that will mean rerouting some cables.

Most basically, it creates an inaccurate picture of the attack. Although it might seem that the attack on a piano note is naturally loudest at the very start, if you zoom in on a wave file in an editor, a few milliseconds or so of movement from 0 decibels to the peak can be seen--the time in which the hammer is first coming into contact with the string, pushing against the string before it is released to vibrate.

Ah, I have looked at my waves previously in detail, and that's what I saw. If the piano sample truly started at +/- 32767 then you would hear a really nasty pop ...

I'm not sure if I understand--were you agreeing or disagreeing? In any case, here's a wave from the Black Grand in Audacity, zoomed in to reveal the attack, and how the start point is at a lower amplitude than the the peak. Very brief, but it's there:

But of course my real concern here is just that, mistake or no mistake, the programming limits what can be done with Piano 1.